...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...claimed this week that their forces were able to recover all of the territory they lost to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) inside the East Ghouta town of al-Nashabiyah.
According to Jaish al-Islam activists, their forces launched a swift counter-assault against the Syrian Army on Sunday night, striking the latter’s positions at the key hilltop of Tal Firzat near al-Nashabiyah.
Once they cleared the Tal Firzat area, Jaish al-Islam reportedly pushed back the government forces from al-Nashabiyah and restored the points they previously lost.
While the front-lines are unclear at the moment, it appears that the fighting has all but dissipated at al-Nashabiyah, as both sides have halted their attacks.